Help Kickstart Scrum Inc.’s XM Class

Help Scrum Inc. create a hardware focused, hands-on Agile classroom experience! Learn the fundamentals of scrum and eXtreme manufacturing by building a car end-to-end in two days at the WIKISPEED shop in Seattle.

Dear Agile enthusiast,

I'm Joe Justice, Team Lead of Team WIKISPEED. In collaboration with multiple globally distributed teams, I've created a new Agile framework know as eXtreme Manufacturing (XM.) XM uses the Scrum Framework to help accelerate traditional manufacturing and lower costs. XM is how Team WIKISPEED was able to design, develop, and build a 100mpg car in less than 3 months. Team WIKISPEED continues to produce weekly iterations of the car, and we just opened a mass production site built around teams to scale the cost benefits of flow-based mass production with the low cost of new product developments achieved with Scrum.

I think XM can revolutionize how we make things and, in the process, make the world a better place. This is my passion and I want to share it with you. I’d like to invite you to a hands-on classroom experience teaching you how to use eXtreme Manufacturing. This course in truly unique. Over the two days, you would spend time above the garage learning the basics of Scrum and other concepts like Agile architecture, object-oriented design and test driven development. The rest of the time, you'll be down in the WIKISPEED shop applying these techniques.

I’ve been running around the world for the past few years working with companies making everything from tractors to missiles. We’ve been working on perfecting Scrum in hardware, and after seeing the same sort of productivity increases we see with software in hardware, I think I’ve got it with XM.

watch a public build party

learn about the elements of XM

Scrum provides the basic framework for XM teams. We borrow the Scrum practice of small and cross-functional teams working iteratively in sprints. XM employs Scrum tools (such as a scrum board and a product backlog) to maintain transparency. It uses the Lean concept of continuous improvement and the Scum practice of assuring process improvement through velocity.

eXtreme Programing (XP) has influenced many XM best practices:

User stories help drive develop from an end-user perspective.

Pairing allows a small team to swarm on a particular task, while cross-training employees and building quality control into the manufacturing process.

Test Driven Development, or TDD, dramatically speeds up time-to-market and lower development costs. Team WIKISPEED for example used real-time crash test data to build a computer program that simulates an actual crash test. They were able to save millions of dollars in crash tests by simulating them each Sprint. After a number of Sprints accumulating data, WIKISPEED pays for another physical test. The new information is then used to up-date the computer simulation. This lowers material costs since WIKISPEED doesn’t have to destroy a car each time they want to test it and it reduces production costs because crash tests are expensive.

Modularity allows for innovative design while building on iterative development. It prevents engineering challenges from rippling through the entire design. For example, the Team WIKISPEED car is divided into eight modules, which allows the team to change the suspension system, speedometer or car body at any point and not have to tweak the chassis to make the improved components fit.

Contract First Design: As manufacturing matures, more and more customers are insisting on custom designs. XM embraces customization before the manufacturing process even starts. For example, WIKISPEED takes only custom orders of its commuter cars and is able to easily meet each customer’s need because of the car’s modularity.